When assessing availability and suitability of any particular airport for landing, the crew of an aircraft has to take into account a large amount of information stored in different storage locations and/or displayed in different locations around a cockpit.
When a diversion related situation occurs during landing, a pilot may learn from a notice to airmen (NOTAM) message that there is a runway shortage condition (or other relevant warning). The crew then calculates, given the current weight of the aircraft, whether they can still land safely at the particular runway. However, without integrating the NOTAM message with relevant information from other sources, a complete picture of the safety of the intended landing cannot be visualized. For example, integrating the NOTAM message with a current airport meteorological message (METAR) reporting wet runway surfaces, may provide an indication that aircraft braking performance will be compromised and the available runway length may not be sufficient. Preparation for landing is a cognitively demanding task, and even when a pilot references other sources for relevant information, the added cognitive burden from attempting to quickly integrate, visualize, and incorporate complex links among related pieces of relevant information in making landing decisions may be very high.
The herein described invention provides a system and method for an improved aircraft information display. The provided airport availability and suitability system embodiments integrate and analyze relevant data from on-board and external sources to render airport availability and suitability information on the aircraft information display. The airport availability and suitability system incorporates links between related pieces of information, is intuitively arranged, and dynamically updates responsive to user interaction. The technical effect of the invention is a reduction of time and increase in likelihood that a user will incorporate related pieces of information in making landing decisions.